"When shall you come back?"
"Oh! Very soon. I hope in a few days, now. But I must go to this
friend at Brighton. She's relying on me."
It was enough for him, and indeed he liked the idea of a secret. "Yes,
yes," he agreed eagerly.
There was the sound of another uproar in Duck Square. It appeared to
roll to and fro thunderously.
She shivered. The fire was dead out in the stove, and the chill of
night crept in from the street.
"It's nearly dark," she said. "I must go! I have to pack... Oh dear,
dear--those poor men! Somebody will be hurt!"
"I'll walk up with you," he whispered, holding her, in owner ship.
"No. It will be better not. Let me out."
"Really?"
"Really!"
"But who'll take you to Knype Station?"
"Janet will go with me."
She rose reluctantly. In the darkness they were now only dim forms to
each other. He struck a match, that blinded them and expired as they
reached the passage...
When she had gone, he stood hatless at the open side door. Right at the
top of Duck Bank, he could discern, under the big lamp there, a knot of
gesticulating and shouting strikers, menacing two policemen; and farther
off, in the direction of Moorthorne Road, other strikers were running.
The yellow-lit blinds of the Duck Inn across the Square seemed to screen
a house of impenetrable conspiracies and debaucheries. And all that
grim, perilous background only gave to his emotions a further intensity,
troubling them to still stranger ecstasy. He thought: "It has happened
to me, too, now--this thing that is at the bottom of everybody's mind!
I've kissed her! I've got her! She's marvellous, marvellous! I
couldn't have believed it. But is it true? Has it happened?" It
passed his credence... "By Jove! I absolutely forgot about the ring!
That's a nice how d'ye do!" ... He saw himself married. He thought of
Clara's grotesque antics with her tedious babe. And he thought of his
father and of vexations. But that night he was a man. She, Hilda, with
her independence and her mystery, had inspired him with a full pride of
manhood. And he discovered that one of the chief attributes of a man is
an immense tenderness.